When a club of independent artists called Art/diagonal was established in Prof. Kurt Freundlinger’s atelier in Vienna at the end of February 1988, none of the partaking artists, lovers of the good art, had any idea that this grouping was to successfully celebrate thirty years of its continuous existence in 2018.
How did it all happen? At the beginning, there was an idea to create a free association of artists from Austria and neighbouring countries under the motto: “Art without Boundaries.” It is an association of artistically-mature individuals using German as a common language and a “language of art” as a universal one. This universal language serves to activate the authors, but also the viewers and visitors, to be proud of their affiliation with the common cultural region of Central Europe, which is very appreciated indeed in the current everyday context of changing Europe.

Although each of the artists has their own artistic style, is from a different region and professes different priorities in their lives, not to mention wide age range and continuous generational change of authors in the club, they have something in common: the ability to use creativity, colour, form, composition to affect, both consciously and subconsciously, the social affairs in the common European home and to pass on the legacy or reflection of the idea of “art without boundaries” to their contemporaries and the future generations. It is a logical essence of long-time development and, at the same time, an opportunity to express their own feelings, emotions, ideas, dreams, dynamics, but also tenderness, humility and balance.

The club members include artists from Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine. Slovakia is represented by two authors - Marián Komáček and Ján Ťapák. Apart from domestic displays in Vienna, the club also exhibits in Linz, Graz, St. Polten, Steyr as well as in Italy, Germany, Portugal, and they have also introduced themselves to Slovak audience twice in Trenčín and Senica.

The exhibition title DIALOG / DIAGONAL which the club introduces to the Trnava audience in Synagogue – Centre of Contemporary Art is also a synonym of the intent to hold an open dialogue with a viewer. The introduced works are new and their choice has been left up to the authors. The visitors are confronted with varying artistic style, from realistic to abstract, be it two-dimensional or three-dimensional exhibits, with the majority of them being rather abstract or semi-abstract. In its nature, the abstraction offers far more possibilities to express an author’s idea or mood. Above all, it gives an artist an opportunity to make something completely new, unexpected, which has never been here before. Although it might be difficult to identify relations of ideas among the individual works in the collection, it is a unique opportunity for many artists to present themselves in the given artistic collective. It is thus a salon kind of exhibition. In any case, the club is more particular about positivity, harmony, quality and craftsmanship of the works, and less about a disharmony, provocation or destruction. The exhibition will last until June 16, 2017.